(9 days survived)
Celebrations
The celebrations continued as the freed gnomes returned from hunts, finished decorating and reclaimed their long-neglected homes. The spirit of the small fey shined, emotional, uplifting, all of it because of the group and their efforts. Pongwa was again king and, thanks to The Heart of the Wild, the Savanna was quickly reversing the great damages done by Blight and Al'kek'uma. Dancing, singing, feasting and story-telling commenced.
However this party was only a short respite in the dark days, for the Tifana gnomes planned on gathering what forces they could and attempting to topple the Twisttongue Tower in a few days' time. And an even more important mission was also about to be gotten underway, the disposal of Blight, which the group themselves volunteered and were charged with.
Flirtations
A glimmer of light and hope in what had been a consistently dreary Savanna seemed to spark not only the gnomes into frivolity, but Kaylan as well. She made more than enough hinting at being interested in Frederick who, at first, flirted with and then actually turned down!
But a certain Ethrey was there to pick up where the Nors left off...
A Mysterious Meeting
Portia watched the party from off and away, still brooding over the loss of Precious. She was joined by a shady looking gnome hunter who introduced himself as Dokur. The two passed words, Portia not in the mood for being friendly, and when Dokur misjudged her race as a whole for her particular actions, she turned to counter but he was gone again.
Entertaining The Moment
Kaylan, dejected and horny, went off with the smooth-talking Giers. Out of sight, they kissed and groped, but just when it might have gone further Kaylan stopped. She was only tasting what she could not have and valued Isabella's feelings too highly to betray her trust. A blue-balled Giers agreed and they returned to Hulda and Isabella.
Summoned
A soft-faced gnomess named Sagemarie, messenger of the king, came to the group and requested their presence in Pongwa's great hut. The group agreed, Portia joining along the way, but they thought better than to have an audience without Kaylan present. Hulda went to find her, followed by Frederick, and then Giers along with them.
Under Moonlight
The cleric, by that point, had strolled well outside the village, admiring the returned beauty of the grass sea. Out from behind a rock sprung Frederick (a second one!) and asked for a dance. The blaring music from town was muted and almost gentle at the distance that stood, and of course she agreed. One thing led to another and they were stripping, kissing, and going at it. Kaylan was bent over a rock and experienced the best sex of her life, in part from Frederick's finesse but also because of the way The Wild heightened sensations.
Kaylan's Trail
Frederick the tracker led Hulda and Giers out of town and down a trail only he was skilled enough to see. However he developed a harsh cough on the way, which both siblings realized was masking... a laugh. The laughing grew, even as the urias and ethrey grew more and more suspicious.
Frederick suddenly dropped to all fours, laughing to the point of dry heaving. Hulda and Giers moved for him, but he flicked his wrist and roots exploded from the ground and entangled them. The paladin managed to escape with the frantic beating of his wings and stab down on Frederick's back. However, the warden suddenly became a million wriggling worms in man shape and fell to the ground, where upon they dug their way to freedom with a high, piercing cackle.
It was later revealed that this creature was a Changeling, feeling spry after the effects of Blight had been reversed, and likely drawn to the music, song and life radiating from town.
Giers vs. Frederick
Kaylan heard the laugh and Giers cries of panic, and tore off Frederick to go chasing after. The warden finished up and raced after, hopping into his pants along the way. When they got on the scene, however, a confused and angry Giers attacked the warden. He stabbed him brutally in the stomach, then tried to punch him, at which point the warden managed to one-two the paladin backward.
Kaylan stayed Hulda with cries of protest and healed the warden's wounds. What followed was a confusing, infuriating, sorrowful and dangerous exchange of emotions and subtle threats between half the party, one that sent each of them storming off.
Giers, Hulda and Frederick returned to the patient Isabella and Portia, waiting outside Pongwa's hut, but it was quickly apparent Giers and Frederick couldn't be within fifty feet of each other. Kaylan ran after the Nors warden. The rest went inside.
Bind Yourselves
Pongwa waited inside with his advisers, who performed a binding ritual of friendship, trust and responsibility between the four present. Empathic, the gnomes sensed all the turmoil and tension, but Pongwa did his best to reassure the group. He explained the monster looking like Frederick was a Changeling and offered council in trusting one another. The ceremony was brief, but rather beautiful, and actually did help to cool heads and restore a bit of optomism.
Goodbye
Meanwhile, Kaylan and Frederick had a very heartfelt conversation just on the outskirts of town. The Nors did not understand the ways of Kalinda and asked if passion without responsibility was one of her tenets. Kaylan explained that was her own doing, as was all the pain she'd caused him. He couldn't blame her, though, but he couldn't go on with the group, either. Too much bad blood had boiled up between Giers and him. Kaylan wished him well and left, a little heartbroken. Frederick, for his part, could not speak nor watch her go.
Across the Savanna
The party set off across the Savanna, making for Twistwood and Highmist beyond it. Dokur led the way, a somber or otherwise mopey group trailing behind. Kaylan often looked back, but he wasn't coming. Giers tried to express everything he was feeling, but the cleric stopped him after too long. Hulda wiped some tears as she went. After the binding ceremony, though, the group didn't seem as hostile toward each other, instead rather remorseful and sympathetic.
I'll Cry If You Like
All the chatter, and the boggart's cartwheeling, provoked a scolding from Dokur, who the group was finding much more dour and grim than his other gnome kin. Portia retorted with some wise words on the pointlessness of despair. Her shouted response was so sudden, everyone in the group stopped, and Dokur actually agree, ceasing his group depreciation hence forth.
After camp and another day's travel, they reached the emerald treeline of Twistwood.
Bind Yourselves Once More
Before they entered The Twistwood, Dokur removed some rope, joined with Portia and Hulda's own. The group bound themselves around the waist, Isebella rightly suspecting the misty forest interior would try to separate them. And so they entered, almost immediately swallowed by the cloudy ground. Soon it was impossible to see beyond a foot or so.
The Gnarled Arm
Suddenly Blight began drifting away from Isabella, its sick glow fading in the gray soup. She used her mage hand to help her retrieve it from the persistent drift of the mist, only to watch in horror as a gigantic, gnarled arm leapt from the unknown, black with seeping red pustules. It grabbed Blight's handle and tried tearing it away.
The witch was shocked and entirely unwilling to let her charge go. She fought her will against the nameless monster's strength, aided by the flapping, anchoring and struggling of the group, but whatever lurked this fog was stronger still and began to tear them through the forest. Branches and saplings wipped by, winding everyone, even as the witch fought the monster for control of Falst's Legacy.
Up became down, everything was noise and carnage, and the monster shrieked and gargle-roared with ferocity beyond the animal kindgom. In a last ditch effort, it tried to tear away the mace, but Isabella prevailed.
Escape
Seeing an opening in the lull, Dokur screamed at the top of his lungs for the others to follow. The ropes around the group's waists began to tug and everyone ran, even as the thick mists stirr with empty claw swipes, flung trees and waves of clawed earth. They escaped the mists and entered into the forest proper, a vast forest with trees twisting upward near a hundred feet, pulled by some strange, planar gravity into growing thus. The Twistwood was beyond verdant, glowing brilliant green and all the shades between, heavy with thick, wild vegetation and crawling with life.
Keep Moving
Dokur regained his bearings, suddenly marveling at how far they'd been dragged off course. He also looked worried, spurring the group to keep moving. When questioned why, he told them whatever was in the magical mist had pulled them a good forty miles off course, forcing them to take a more dangerous road to Highmist. They'd be at the mountain in about a week, if they made it there at all.
Buzzing
Not too long after getting a move on, a loud, insect buzzing began to trail the group in the canopy above. Portia and Dokur caught flashes of what seemed like hornets or wasps. Eventually a swarm of giant fey hornets, each of the size of eggplants, descended. But they did not attack. Kaylan wondered why aloud, when she was answered.
Santh
Eight ten-inch creatures looking like indigo crosses between elves and insects emerged from behind the high leaves, provoking Dokur to spit the word faerie almost like a curse. They chided the group, gauging whether or not they could successfully ambush them.
Then one called Santh, a particularly crooked Final-Sting faerie, took one look at Isabella and swore she was the reincarnation of Feith Gwyllion, their former queen of Leafshadow slain in a demon incursion nearly twenty years ago. He postulated all sorts of strange, unlikely theories as to how Isabella could be this reincarnated fey queen and seemed to mentally and emotionally bind himself to the young wizard then. Perhaps he was exhausted from the long years of searching for an object of worship, maybe he was just crazy, or maybe he really did see in Isabella something of The Empress of Leafshadow.
Exile
Santh's incessant claims that Isabella was queen finally boiled over in the lead faerie Marilis. She offered her errant kin one last chance to rebuke his mad claims (for indeed none of the seven other faeries saw the striking resemblance Santh did), but he refused. She exiled him from Leafshadow forever more and left with the final-sting cadre.
Santh didn't seem too broken up as he played in the wizard's hair, crying they'd all be sorry. He would be a prince of New Leafshadow and they would wallow (he later checked with Isabella if that would indeed be the case which she agreed to). And so he continued his grovelling, adulation and fawning over the little princess, which she didn't seem to mind at all.
Deeper (Beware the Ceallach)
Dokur, and Santh with him, spurred the group onward, the stretch of woods they tarried in apparently very dangerous. The faerie mentioned something called the Ceallach roamed these parts, an undisputed dominant predator, though in a realm as wild as Twistwood that seemed hard to fathom. Little did the group know they'd already encountered the Ceallach once in the mist...
Can You Sing?
As the sun began to set, Dokur remarked on the dangers of camping in the open Twistwood. He suggested they all bury themselves in top soil and escape notice, but the group had had some very bad experiences underground and refused. Santh suggested climbing a high tree, but considering the twisttrees spiraled nearly a hundred feet up, that idea too was scrapped.
Santh mentioned, then, of one called Merlodia, a powerful naiad dwelling in a near-by pool. She loved songs and music, worshiped them really, and if someone in the group could impress her she'd verily harbor the group from danger. However Dokur interjected that if the group sounded off-key or unappealing, she'd eat them.
After some discussion, Merlodia's pool was decided a preferable plan to burying or climbing, but the sun fell faster than anticipated.
In the Bushes
Kaylan, Isabella and Giers wandered off behind some trees, hammering out some differences and misunderstandings. It ultimately lead to a glum cleric moping back to camp while Isabella and Giers fooled around. Perhaps The Wild inspired such things...
Night
Darkness drew over The Twistwood, the group having little choice but to remain outside in a tight camp. Dokur, in disbelief, went off to bury himself in top soil and a frightened Santh withdrew to the highest tree tops.
Howls, screaming, crackling branches and heavy breathing roared around the children's small fire, blackness obscuring the origins of such ruckus. The cathedral of nature that once sprawled so high and far during the day shrunk to an orange sphere of existence barely capable of holding the group. They did not feel safe...
Experience: 400 xp each (4168 xp total)
NPCs:
Dokur, gnome guide to Highmist
Sagemarie, gnomess messenger of King Pongwa
Santh, final-sting faerie (and future familiar)
Marilis, final-sting female (who exiled Santh)
Merlodia (mentioned), naiad queen of song and eater of the off-key
Monsters: Changeling, The Ceallach (gnarled arm that pulled you through the mist), Fey Hornets, Final-Sting Faeries
Places: Savanna, Twistwood (Mist and Forest)
Organizations: Wadi Hafa Resistance (savanna gnome nation of three villages, two of which are still under the power of demon towers, looking to break free thanks to the group's inspiration), Leafshadow (queenless kingdom of the final-sting faeries)
Faeries: Though much has been written on Othyr about small, pretty, joyful fey called faeries, a visit to any forest in The Wild reveals the real nature of the Folk of the Wood, quick, wily and often cruel, with a touch of madness and appearances falling somewhere between tiny elves and bugs. Their kingdoms span the plane, largely in wooded areas where they create cities in the tree tops similar to hives or nests.
Final-Sting Faeries
While there are undoubtedly many varieties of faerie, the group's only experience has been with The Final-Sting bloodline, ten-inch tall, purple-skinned, with long limbs ended in hornet-like hands and feet. Their faces are drawn out, looking like elven caricatures, framed in black, matted hair and crowned with twitching antennae. Their off-white wings look almost feathery and they tend to carry giant stinger rapiers. They command the fey hornets of The Twistwood.
Collected in the kingdom of Leafshadow, Final-Stingers are in a state of flux. Their queen, Feith Gwyllion, was slain during a demon incursion, leaving her children bereft of leadership. The bloodline has remained intact, awaiting her reincarnation or the rise of a new queen, but as of yet none have revealed themselves.
There is one believer, Santh, who is insanely sure Isabella is the reincarnation of his queen.
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